


A Hint of Coconut

by d0g-bless (d0gbless)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Baking, Boys Kissing, Canon Compliant, Cooking, Crushes, Fluff, Homesickness, Kissing, M/M, Mutual Pining, Stolen Food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 08:58:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14352210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d0gbless/pseuds/d0g-bless
Summary: In which Hunk sets off the Castle's emergency alarms because someone stole and presumably ate his favorite treats from home.Clearly, Lance isn't the thief. Not even with all the crumbs on his face and clothes. Definitely. Not. Lance.





	A Hint of Coconut

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fryinggpansexual](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=fryinggpansexual).



> Fryinggpansexual (what a great username!) requested either a Hance or Sheith fic for the Voltron Ship Exchange. I think Hance is a rarepair (— well, when compared to Sheith — and as someone who lives and breathes Shidge content and is always thirsty for it, I had to go with the rarepair.
> 
> Besides, Hunk and Lance are just two rays of sunshine and positivity. Why wouldn't you want these two together?
> 
> Hope you like it!
> 
> Oh, also, this was slightly inspired by an OTP prompt: “So you’re the bastard who keeps taking my lunch from the work fridge” AU. Except this isn't exactly an AU. Takes place in the canon 'verse except everyone has their respective Lions from seasons 1 and 2.

Alteans, it seemed, did not have the best night vision. Neither did humans for that matter, but Alteans’ night vision was worse than his.

Hunk came to this conclusion the first time he’d wandered the halls during the Castle’s simulated night. Although the Castle was dark, it wasn’t the pitch-black darkness of the dead of space or the sky at night. The colors ran between a deep grey and navy blue, similar to a late evening on Earth.

The engineer in him marveled not at the Castle’s imitation of an Altean night sky, but at the strand of lights that lit up in electric blue whenever someone walked past them. How much work did Coran’s grandfather put into this ship’s design?

Definitely more thought had gone into the ship than in Altean cuisine. It was no wonder, then, Hunk loved occasionally stopping by Earth to visit home from time to time. His mom would whip up his favorite foods and insist he stay longer next time.

But he couldn’t.

As much as Hunk loved the feel of beach sand between his toes and his food and family, he had another love that kept him star bound rather than Earth-bound.

If only that love showed him even the slightest interest. Given Lance’s penchant for flirting with pretty women of almost every alien species, Hunk knew it wasn’t a love worth pursuing. It was a one-sided crush and probably always would be.

But Lance was his friend. The friend that always got him into trouble, stemming all the way back from their days at the Garrison. He’d lost count of the times Lance’s shenanigans landed him in the principal’s office back then. Hunk took the fall for Lance more often than not, and somehow, he’d fallen for Lance in a different way around the same time.

Lance, who had this stupidly handsome smile whenever he cracked a joke, no matter how terrible it was. Lance, whose laughter was infectious even at the most inappropriate of time. Lance, who hit on the prettiest — and least interested — person in the room.

Hunk made a turn into the commissary and wandered to the makeshift fridge he and Pidge had designed and pulled together using parts they’d found in her favorite little trash nebula. It did a pretty good job at keeping the Paladins’ meals from home fresh. Pretty good was a modest statement, as the fridge could calculate when a dish was close to going bad and then adjust its settings to prevent said food from spoiling. It did this without affecting other foods, which had taken a lot of trial and error until he and Pidge finally got it right.

He pulled open the fridge’s door and winced at the too-bright light that emanated from it. He blinked owlishly until his vision came into clearer focus. With a determined glint in his eye, Hunk rummaged through his section of the fridge, which was labeled with a yellow sticky note with his name in all caps (just as Lance’s was set off with a blue sticky note and his autograph, as he called it; and Pidge with green, Keith in red, and so forth).

He could almost taste and feel the golden-brown buttery flakiness of his mom’s famous _masi samoa_ on his tongue. Hers was the best on the islands, even better than his own. Tourists would stop by and request what they assumed were shortbread cookies at the family bakery, only for Mom to politely but firmly correct them: “ _Masi samoa._ Samoan coconut cookies.”

Whenever he returned to Earth, his mother always prepared him a homecoming feast, pinching his cheek and asking him what on Earth he was eating, to which he’d reply, “Nothing on Earth.”

Mom would click her tongue and say that she needed to fatten him up with nothing but the best food.

“ _Masi samoa_?” he’d suggest.

“ _Masi samoa,_ ” she’d agree, then bake several dozen batches to keep her son satiated until the next return trip.

And yet the last ziplocked bag of _masi samoa_ was empty, nary a crumb left. Mom had even written his name on the tightly sealed along with a little heart. No, wait. The seal had been left open a little bit, and judging by the lack of condensation, the monster responsible for this crime couldn’t have done this more than an hour ago or so.

Hunk eyed the lever that was for emergencies only, though definitions of the word “emergency” varied from Paladin to Paladin. Lance had pulled the lever when he ran out of skin care products; Keith, when he practiced throwing kitchen knives, only for him to miss the target and somehow hit the switch perfectly; and Pidge, when she’d accidentally started an electrical fire by overloading a makeshift outlet.

Under most circumstances, Hunk would never pull this lever. Maybe it was due to his grumbling stomach or not-quite-awake brain; whichever it was, Hunk pulled the lever.

* * *

Like a magnet, the sound of alarms pulled everyone to the kitchen. First came Shiro, then Allura and Coran, Keith, Pidge, and Lance.

Shiro drew in a long breath, presumably to calm himself for an eminent attack or to gather his patience. “What’s going on?”

The other residents of the Castle murmured similar questions:

“Did someone break in?”

“An attack?”

Hunk held up a hand. “No, no, no,” he said with a wave.  “It’s nothing like that.” Upon seeing Pidge’s mouth open to ask more questions, Hunk quickly added, “I think we have a thief on board.”

Coran slapped a knee and guffawed. “A thief? Don’t be ridiculous, Hunk! Had someone broken in, we would have known immediately. After all, I believe I’ve mentioned that my grandfather built this beauty of a ship, haven’t I?”

The rest of the group groaned their confirmation. The real question was this: When _hadn’t_ Coran brought the subject up?

“Didn’t work so great when Ulaz magically appeared onboard,” Keith deadpanned.

Wiping the tears streaming down his face from laughter, Coran sobered up at Keith’s accusation. “Well, that was quite some time ago, and I don’t believe we’ve suffered a breach since.” He tilted his chin up and grinned. “So, no, there can’t possibly be a thief on board.”

Hunk cleared his throat. “But there is. Someone stole my mom’s _masi samoa._ ” He shoved the evidence — the emptied ziplock bag — before Coran’s face. “Does anyone here want to say anything?”

Shiro, tired as ever, stepped up to face Hunk. “Is this really worth pulling the alarm over?”

“Well, in Hunk’s defense, it’s been triggered for more trivial matters than this one.” Pidge shot Lance an icy glare.

“Yes! Thank you, Pidge!” Hunk gestured to the smallest member of the team. “See? She gets it.” He held out his hand for a high-five.

Pidge frowned up at him. “This isn’t worth a ‘Team Punk’ high-five,” she said. “I was actually in the middle of some groundbreaking research, and this is definitely putting a damper on things.”

“I most certainly did not touch your food, Hunk.” Allura stifled a yawn with her hand. “Neither Coran nor I have the constitution for chocolatenut.”

“Coconut. It’s called coconut.” But that was right; Allura and Coran had some sort of aversion to anything coconut. It seemed the Altean digestive system was well-equipped to handle the sweet food. So that left the Paladins. No, wait! “Maybe the mice got into it. Is there any chance you could use telepathy and ask any of them about it?”

She nodded. “I can certainly ask them.” Allura closed her eyes and reached out to her little friends.

“I have to say is it just me, or is the most talkative person here the most quiet?” Keith jerked a thumb toward Lance’s direction.

Lance wiped his face with his sleeve. “What? Me? No.” He made an “X” over his chest with his arms. “No way, Jose. I didn’t do anything. Now Keith, here, is trying to start something with me. Is anyone going to call him out on that?”

Shiro heaved a sigh. “I am too tired to deal with you two bickering.” He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “I’m going back to bed.”

“No, no one is going back to sleep until we find whoever committed this crime! Paladins, line up!”

The four remaining Paladins lined up from top to bottom: Black, Red, Green, and Blue.

Hunk inspected each Paladin for crumbs and smudges on the corners of their mouths. The first three Paladins were clean, free of any damning evidence.

And then, there was Lance, who was the only one avoiding eye contact with Hunk, who clearly had tried to wipe evidence from the corners of his mouth and only made the powdery smudges worse.

Hunk knew he should’ve been angry. But now that he had the thief’s identity confirmed, he couldn’t bring himself to even accuse Lance of wrongdoing.

“Go to bed,” he said. “Pretty sure it was the mice.”

“Actually, Platt—” the chubby yellow mouse scrabbled onto Allura’s shoulder and squeaked at the mention of his name. “—Says he saw Lance going through the snacks and eating your food.”

Lance winced at the mouse’s confirmation. His lips trembled in an insecure smile, one that knew he’d been caught, and by a mouse no less.

“It wasn’t him.” Hunk stood tall and firm, unwavering in his declaration, even though he knew it to be a lie. “Platt’s probably covering for one of the mice.”

Platt snorted and turned his nose upward with a twitch, eliciting a horrified gasp from Allura: “Language, Platt!”

“Sorry for waking everyone up.” Hunk scratched the back of his neck and gave a sheepish grin. He could feel the heat of his companions’ glares for the interruption from their respective living areas. Oh, well.

Tomorrow, they’d all be over it.

* * *

“I can’t believe you let Lance off the hook last night.” Hunk almost missed Pidge’s comment over the sound of power tools. She was adding more adjustments to her Lion, though what they did, he didn’t know, as he was too afraid to ask. Mostly due to the fact that Pidge was working with a drill. Luckily the chainsaw was too much for her handle.

Okay, so apparently Pidge was not over the events of the night before. Hunk shrugged. “Well, he didn’t do it.”

Pidge stopped what she was doing to mop sweat from her forehead. “Bullshit. He had crumbs all over. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d left a trail from his room.”

“I didn’t see anything.”

“Maybe you didn’t, but I think everyone except Lance saw something.”

Hunk gulped. He did not like where this was going. “What are you talking about?”

“You like Lance.”

His ears burned hot. “Well, yeah, he’s my best friend. Of course I like Lance.”

“Hunk.”

Shoot. If Pidge, the person who struggled socially and preferred the company of technology over people, could see that he had a crush on Lance, he was screwed. “Fine. I might have a tiny thing for him. So?”

“Ha! I knew it!” She prodded Hunk in the gut with a surprisingly sharp elbow. “So, aren’t you going to tell him?”

It took a second for him to recover his breath, as Pidge had accidentally knocked the wind out of him. “I don’t know. He’s my best friend, and I don’t want to change that because of a stupid crush. Besides, he only flirts with good-looking people.” Hunk turned away. “He’d never be into someone like me.”

“Okay, but how often has someone he’s hit on shown interest in him? Like, actually interested in Lance for who he is? Not because he’s a Paladin or anything like that.”

Pidge had a point there. “Loverboy” Lance had a history of unrequited crushes and overall, a very low rate of success with dating anyone.

“Besides,” Pidge continued. “You’re not hideous.”

“Gee, Pidge, that’s _really_ doing wonders for my confidence.”

“My point is, if you were like, super grotesque, Lance wouldn’t even look at you. Since you’re not hideous, and if I may so myself, are pretty cute and very sweet, I think you have a good chance with Lance. Besides, he’s so into himself he probably forgot that people close to him might actually have feelings for him.”

Hunk chuckled. She was right about that. “So, you think I should ask him out?”

Pidge didn’t answer over the sound of the drill.

He’d take that as a yes.

* * *

_Playa Veradero._ Veradero Beach: The expanse of white sand for miles on end. Ocean waves roared, lapping up the feet with each wave crashing onto the beach. Families of all shapes and sizes laughed and chased one another, shouting and screaming with joy. Gulls and terns joined the commotion with raucous squawks, shitting on docks and on boats and on the occasional tourist’s head.

Lance missed it, all of it. But he knew he had a duty to keep others safe. Voltron was about so much more than his family, more than the fame and the fortune that came with it.

Still, it was strange how he no longer considered Veradero his home. Home was… everywhere. Lance saw home in the faces of families liberated from the Galra. Home was a group hug with the Paladins — even that stupid kid with the mullet. Home was everywhere and everyone.

But something was missing. Or rather, someone.

He’d thought for sure, being a Paladin of Voltron would at least impress someone out there — and it did. It impressed nearly everyone out there. But the relationships he’d attempted to form, how to explain it? Maybe the bond he shared with the Paladins had somehow ruined any other significant relationships. The Paladins’ bond constantly changed and shifted, but it was deeper than anything he’d had before finding Blue and this whole war.

Sometimes, he thought about dating one of the Paladins. Shiro and Keith were a thing, so that was a no-go. Pidge had no interest in anyone except robots. And Hunk? Hunk was great. His best friend, his confidant with a handsome smile and the best jokes and everything.

But if something were to go wrong with him and Hunk, then what? Lance wrapped his arms around himself and shuddered at the thought. Besides, there was no way Hunk liked him. No way.

Or so he’d thought.

He’d stolen Hunk’s cookies for a snack. It was obvious, too. It wasn’t like Hunk to brush something like that off. Besides, Hunk had an eye for detail. Hunk had to have known, right? So why let him go?

Lance groaned and flopped back onto his bed. _I am overthinking this. Just act. Do something!_ He took a breath, then paused to sniff the air.

“No way.” He took another whiff. _Garlic. Marinara sauce._ The scent brought him back to Veradero Beach again to his favorite vendor on the docks, with the best garlic knots on the planet.

A solid _thud_ came from the kitchen. It was a measured, precise sound. _Thud._ One that had a rhythm to it. _Thud._ The sound of pizza dough being slammed against a table. _Thud._

Lance slid into his Blue Lion slippers and headed for the kitchen. There, the scent of garlic seasoning overwhelmed his nose in the best of ways.

And sure enough, there stood Hunk, his massive build and muscular arms covered in sticky flour as he formed dough with his meaty hands. “Oh, man,” he groaned. “I can’t get these to look right.”

Lance’s gaze dipped to the table. Garlic knots. Hunk was making garlic knots. Though to be fair, yeah, they didn’t look like garlic knots. More like flattened garlic snakes braided into a bigger snake.

“Hey, man.”

A startled Hunk fell back against a counter and onto the floor. “L-Lance!” he spluttered.

“Sorry about that,” Lance said. He took Hunk’s hand and hauled the bigger guy up to his feet. “Hey, also, about last night—”

“It wasn’t you.” _Thud._ Hunk threw the dough against the table. _Thud._

Lance began to peel the garlic snake braid Hunk had started apart, then began reworking them into proper garlic knots. “No, it was me. I shouldn’t have taken your food without permission.”

 _Thud._ Hunk slammed the dough down again. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Hunk, you pulled the emergency alarm.”

_Thud._

“You said someone on board was a thief.”

_Thud._

“Then you made everyone line up for inspection.”

_Thud._

“You accused the mice of lying.”

_Thud._

“I know you saw crumbs on my face.”

_Thud._

“So why did you let me off the hook?”

Hunk shrugged. “You’re my friend, I guess.”

“And so’s everyone else on this ship. Are you telling me you would let Shiro off easy if he was the culprit? Or Pidge? Or Coran or Allura?”

“You forgot Keith.”

Lance threw his hands up in the air. “Not the point! This isn’t about Keith! What’s really going on? And why the garlic knots?”

For a moment, Hunk seemed so small to Lance. The mom friend who was intimidating on first glance but was the sweetest, gentlest giant you’d ever meet, practically shrank down to the size of a pea.

Hunk felt his face flare up with a blush. “I… promise you won’t laugh?”

“Yeah?”

“Ever since we first met, back as roommates at the Garrison, I, uh, kinda had a thing for you.”

Hunk’s admission stunned Lance into a rare silence. “Why didn’t you say anything?” Lance finally managed.

“You’re my best friend, and I was scared if I said anything, it’d change everything. And you were always flirting with really pretty people and stuff, so I figured I wasn’t your type.”

Lance clucked his tongue and shook his head. He took Hunk’s face into his hands. “Well, clearly you need to get your vision checked because you are a very, very handsome guy.” Lance felt the heat radiating from Hunk’s cheeks. “Just my type, in fact.”

Hunk struggled to say something, anything, but he couldn’t. His brain froze up, unable to properly process. So instead, he settled on kissing Lance, whose lips were soft and smooth on his own...

And Hunk could have sworn he tasted just a hint of coconut.


End file.
